Bernard Schoenburg: Blagojevich trial like a rerun to Topinka

State Comptroller JUDY BAAR TOPINKA has, you might say, a special relationship with former Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH.

State Comptroller JUDY BAAR TOPINKA has, you might say, a special relationship with former Gov. ROD BLAGOJEVICH.

She was, of course, the target of millions of dollars in negative ads paid for by the Blagojevich campaign when Topinka was the Republican nominee for governor in 2006. She ended up losing that race even though Blagojevich, then seeking his second term, already had received a lot of bad publicity.

So, how does Topinka view Blagojevich’s taking the stand in his federal corruption trial and telling his life story of growing up with hardworking parents, etc., etc.?

“It sounded exactly like what he was saying during the gubernatorial campaign,” Topinka said after speaking at a Sangamon County Republican Network luncheon at the Sangamo Club on Friday. “I could almost quote the lines. I mean, this is such a memorized pile of garbage that just spews as something that diverts attention to what’s really going on.

“I’m just assuming,” Topinka continued, “that the strategy is to make him look like he runs at the mouth, and therefore he really isn’t responsible for all this stuff. That’s all I can figure out, because other than that, it has no relevance to the issues whatsoever. But it sure has been interesting watching, and I do watch.”

As she often does in front of Sangamon County audiences, she lauded the local GOP and thanked local voters for giving her more than 67 percent in her race against Blagojevich. She lamented that others in Illinois don’t always see things from that central Illinois perspective.

“It really is a burden for you and for all of central and southern and western Illinois to have Cook County running things,” said Topinka, whose primary residence is in Riverside — in Cook County. “Unfortunately, that’s the way it is.”

Still, she said that fixing the state’s fiscal problems should involve everyone’s ideas.

“They could come from alien life forms,” Topinka said. “If they were good, I’m buying in. Let’s not get so hung up with ideologies.”

Asked later if it makes sense to criticize Cook County in this way, Topinka said she’s just pointing out reality — as in the 2010 race for governor where Republican BILL BRADY won all but a handful of counties, but still lost to Democratic Gov. PAT QUINN, who won in Cook County.

“The way it works now, your votes really don’t count for anything, and you’re just thrown away,” she said of less populous parts of the state. “I don’t think that’s fair.”

She said both political parties are responsible for the deep hole the Illinois state budget is in, because “everybody spent as if there was no tomorrow.”

Topinka said borrowing more money to pay back bills would be “stunningly irresponsible,” but she added that the GOP should not be seen as the “party of no.” Republicans should “come up with alternatives that make some sense,” she said.

Among those, she said, is combining the offices of comptroller and treasurer, as she and fellow Republican, Treasurer Dan Rutherford, advocate, to save about $12 million annually.

“If you have free time,” she added in the speech, “you could probably throw in the office of lieutenant governor on top of it, which is another waste of money.”

KATI PHILLIPS, spokeswoman for Democratic Lt. Gov. SHEILA SIMON, said later that the office budget amounts to 0.003 percent of overall state spending.

“Judy’s comments were in no way a reflection on Lieutenant Governor Simon or the way she runs her office,” Topinka spokesman BRAD HAHN said later. “She’s simply talking about making government more efficient.”

Topinka also told me she could support a commission similar to the federal base closing commission to try to reduce the number of units of government in the state, which is in the thousands. The panel could “just independently start looking at all of these things and see where it takes us,” she said.

Topinka also said that one of her new roles is to chair the state employees’ pension fund. That fund uses a building that houses paper records dating to the 1960s, including pension and medical information, on about 10 million documents. There is no backup if those documents are lost, she said, but converting those documents to electronic form will begin this summer.

“If we had a tornado or a fire, I cannot tell you how my hair will go gray overnight,” said Topinka, who is known for her red hair. “Even the dye won’t hold.”

Topinka, by the way, says her replaced right knee is doing well. She was still using a cane and talking of “a little pain in the back I’ve got to get after” because she used to compensate for the knee pain before her surgery in March. But she also seemed anxious to participate in coming parades.

Interesting point by Cullerton
Senate President JOHN CULLERTON, D-Chicago, said something I’ve often thought is true about the regional perception of state government when he spoke Friday morning to the Citizens Club of Springfield.

As he started his presentation, Cullerton told the gathering at the Hoogland Center for the Arts that when he gives similar speeches in Chicago, he sometimes goes through the accomplishments of the General Assembly.

“I don’t need to do that here because you guys actually follow state government,” Cullerton said, “unlike the Chicago media market, which doesn’t cover us.”

“People up there really know who their alderman is,” Cullerton said. “They know who their mayor is. But they have no idea who their state representative is, or their state senator.”

As an example, he said, he had called former GOP Senate President JAMES “PATE” PHILIP the day before to wish him happy birthday. Philip, who turned 81, is a former DuPage County GOP chairman.

“He said, ‘Now you know, you go 10 miles north of Springfield, nobody cares you’re the president of the Senate, or knows for that matter,’” Cullerton said of his conversation with Philip.